What sort of Europe?

"What are the alternatives for those of us who are socialists, democrats and internationalists who do want to cooperate closely with European neighbours?"

"In theory it would be possible to have a genuinely democratic United States of Europe, along the lines of the American model." This "would involve the complete abolition of the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Central Bank in Frankfurt" which "would be totally unacceptable to the European establishment."

"What the Left in Europe should be working for is a Commonwealth that brings in all the nations, east and west, committed to cooperate with each other and harmonize their policies, step by step, with the consent of each of the parliaments, rather like a mini UN, with an Assembly and Council of Ministers to oversee it, but with no power to impose on those countries that want to pursue policies that meet their own particular circumstances. This would need to be underpinned by the closest links between the trade unions and other progressive popular organizations across the continent."

Tony Benn, in "What Sort of Europe?", in "Free Radical. New Century Essays," 2003.

Tony Benn's idea of a "Commonwealth of Europe" is an excellent one and is explained further in his 1992 book "Common Sense". It is at present the option that I favour.
I think this is a very good perspective on the present problems we face with Europe.
Those advanced by the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 are even more relevant and appropriate.
Please see: https://diem25.org/ Democracy in Europe Movement

This type of thinking is an important contribution to the current debate for those of us on the left in England who recognized that the current EU is tyrannical and antidemocratic, and could not for such reasons bring ourselves to vote to remain in it.

I am well aware that Yanis Varoufakis himself quite ardently campaigned for a Remain vote in the UK Referendum. I disagreed with him on this particular point.  His view was that the European Union is an important project which the UK should - in spite of all the serious problems the EU undoubtedly has - persevere with. Yanis Varoufakis has also said that the EU is a democracy-free zone and is not sustainable in its present form. In the referendum, I thought that it was better to send a message that the EU's behaviour was simply not acceptable. So I have voted Leave with no great hopes for the consequences other than that the EU is made more democratic by my action. Unlike Nigel Farage, I have no particular desire to see the EU totally crumble.

I agreed with Farage's analysis of what the leaders of the EU have been up to and I found some of his speeches to the EU to be compelling exposés of its malfeasance. But I totally despise and reject in every way Farage's nationalism and the xenophobia and the anti-immigrant sentiment that he is linked to.
For example, UKIP was mainly an English movement - why then did it refer to itself as a UK movement? In rejecting the EU in its present form, I in no way endorse a nationalist Europe of any kind.

I am a libertarian socialist. I would not describe myself as a "Marxist" as Yanis Varoufakis does. I am not sure if I have the same views on economics as he does. But in my attempt to understand economics - if I don't already - he is one of the major thinkers that I would look to to explain it.

I hate racism and nationalism and am not in favour of any migration controls.
I resent being associated with racism, nationalism and anti-immigration views simply because I voted to leave the EU.

I believe that what the German-led EU did to Greece was effectively racist and the rhetoric expressed by northern Europeans and particularly by Germans with regard to the social destruction of Greece by the EU (things like "Greeks are lazy", "they deserved it as they don't pay their way") was effectively racist. I have seen so much evidence of this that I cannot believe that this problem is not acknowledged more often. Perhaps it is regarded as so acceptable that it passes without comment.

I don't believe that the satirical linking of contemporary Germany and the EU to the Nazis by some Greeks was entirely inappropriate. The EU is not nazi, but it is tyrannical and arguably racist.

I voted to leave the EU in solidarity with the Greek people and to send a message to the EU and particularly to the Germans that what they did to Greece was not acceptable.
I regard my vote for Brexit as anti-racist because of what the German-led EU did to the Greeks.
The destruction of the Greek public sector by the EU did involve people dying.

In "And The Weak Suffer What They Must?" by Yanis Varoufakis, he says in the opening pages that the European Union "lost its integrity" by "crushing Greece".
That was the major reason that I voted to leave the E.U.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As an anarchist and libertarian, I saw my vote to leave the E.U. as striking blow against two illegitimate bases of power - both the U.K. and the E.U. The result has significantly chastened and weakened both the U.K. and the E.U., with both entities feeling the need to justify their existence and their powers. In this sense I am very pleased with the result of my principled vote.

Another thing that I would like to say about my left-wing vote to leave the E.U. is that I believe it is by no means unrepresentative. Seeing as most voters are not nationalists or UKIP voters and never were, the result must to some extent represent a lot of people who voted to leave the E.U. but who are otherwise moderate in their views.

I think a lot of people voted for Brexit for the basic reason that they felt, perceived or suspected that the E.U. meant that power was being taken away from them, whether this is true or not. In other words, for essentially democratic rather than nationalist perceptions and reasons.

Were a similar referendum held in almost any E.U. country, I suspect that the result would be close or similar to the result in the U.K. and for very similar reasons. The people who run the E.U. know this very well.

Democracy, freedom and self-government are not ideas that are restricted to the nineteenth-century. They are of course still relevant today in the twenty-first century. If those who support the E.U. ignore this, and impute all opposition to it to nationalism, xenophobia and racism, they will never really get to grips with why the E.U. may be unpopular.

The threat of Freudianism

"First, Krauss and Friedell, then Poppers, Jaspers, and Voegelin, and, most recently, I have argued that the psychoanalytic "movement" is a deterministic-historicistic theory of human behaviour and a collective-coercive practice of social control."

Thomas Szasz, in "Anti-Freud. Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry" , 1976.

Freudianism is potentially an enemy of an open society. The same applies to Marxism.

Zizek is to philosophy what Trump is to politics

Zizek is to philosophy what Trump is to politics.

Donald Trump is a disaster for politics.
His views and policies on the environment alone make him a disaster not just for the USA, but for the whole of humanity.
His aggressiveness and irrationality are an ordeal for humanity.
We must start building a political alternative to him and make sure he is not re-elected in the USA in 2020.
He is an incompetent fool.
He is supposedly popular but is not really. His success was achieved at the expense of radically discrediting others rather than because of anything to his own credit.

Slavoj Zizek is to philosophy what Donald Trump is to politics.
He is also an incompetent fool. He is also supposed to be a creditable and popular figure but is not really anything of the kind.

People on the right are very pleased about Zizek's views and supposed popularity, because they can point to his stupidity and ridiculousness, but also to his popularity on the left, as an easy way to discredit the left and alternative politics in general.

He is a convenient way to mock and discredit any kind of large scale opposition to the capitalist West, since he is ambiguous in his attitude towards Stalin and Stalinism. Any alternative to the capitalist West can be portrayed historically as impossible and incoherent given the disastrous errors of Stalinism, as well as its contemporary manifestation in thinkers like Zizek. Zizek's and others on the left's ambiguity about the Soviet episode allows for people on the right to say that the left is in totality an alternative that his been tried and failed. Zizek serves as the icing on the cake of capitalism's supposed victory over the left at the end of the Cold War.

Zizek's vagueness is also something that works to the advantage of the right, since they can point to the lack of rigour and coherence on the left. His simultaneous criticism of the left and adherence to the left further weakens the position of the left.

Whether his vagueness, incoherence and provocative comments are deliberately intended to discredit the left and alternative politics in general is not really relevant.

That they do so is enough for us to make sure that we reject and ignore Zizek as a thinker, and look for others to hold out the hope of something better than what we have now, and to keep the flame of a political alternative alive.

In a similar way, Zizek's status as a "famous philosopher" allows those who, for whatever reason, would rather people did not philosophize or take an interest in philosophy to discredit, dismiss and write off philosophy as the province and concern of insubstantial buffoons and peddlars of nonsense.
Zizek is undoubtedly an insubstantial buffoon and a peddlar of nonsense, and he does a disservice to the status of philosophy.

Some examples of Zizek's blatant folly include the following assertions:
It is acceptable to vote for Trump;
Trump is a centrist;
Macron is the same as Le Pen;
There is no such thing as nature.

Human beings are either male or female.

Human beings are either male of female. This is a fact of human life due to the biological characteristics of the human species.
There are negligibly few - if any - real exceptions to this reality in our own species or other animal species.
How have we come to the ridiculous situation where we are starting to deny this reality in our society and in our political culture?

Scotland to legislate for "third gender"

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/scotland-set-create-legally-recognised-third-gender/


It is unfortunate that one of the intellectual origins of this kind of nonsense is possibly in the philosophy of existentialism - a philosophy which I have a lot of time for.

I believe that Simone De Beauvoir's statement that "one is not born, but rather becomes a woman" is, on a basic level, clearly mistaken.

I believe in human freedom, but there are some things that are incontrovertible realities. Biological sex is one of these incontrovertible realities.

Individual human rights are a good thing and ideals in which I thoroughly believe. But biological realities cannot be changed.

On the Centenary of the Russian Revolution

On the Centenary of the Russian Revolution.

It's a hundred years since the Russian Revolution. Should we celebrate or weep?
Should we be glad the revolution happened?

I believe that we would have to be blind to historical fact to not want to lament that the Russian Revolution happened.

As is so often pointed out the October Revolution was a coup d'e'tat by the Bolsheviks, and not really a revolution. Revolutionary changes followed without doubt, but what actually happened in political terms was essentially a coup d'e'tat rather than a revolution.

I think Lenin did lead to Stalin and history's judgement on the revolution has to be a harsh one.

As has been pointed out, we must learn lessons from what happened.

What we urgently need at the moment in 2017 is revolutionary changes in what we are doing to our planet. We don't need an authoritarian non-democratic revolution. But we do need revolutionary change. Revolution is not necessarily the one solution, as the slogan goes.

I am a fan of the political views of Karl Popper, who insisted that an open society was a requirement for allowing changes to society. The Russian Revolution did not lead to an open society and it was not really intended to lead to one.

We need change but we need democratic, from the bottom up change. We do not need change that is imposed and dictatorial.

Democratic, non-violent revolutions are possible.
And I think that a lesson of the Russian Revolution must be that we should try to achieve democratic, non-violent revolutions, if and when a revolution is something that is necessary.
The revolutions that overthrew the Soviet Empire between 1989 and 1991 were mainly revolutions of this kind.

There is more to be said of course and I will write more when I get the chance.

Was Szasz a conservative?

Was Szasz a conservative?
I would say that there can be no doubt that he was not a conservative.

He was without doubt a libertarian.

He also undoubtedly wanted radical change, in the sense of abolition of state-backed psychiatry and all mental health law.

Human civilisation existed for thousands of years without mental health law and state-backed psychiatry. A desire to revert to this situation is correctly not seen as conservative.

I would call it scientific, radical and progressive.

A good short piece on this question:

Was Szasz a conservative?

Against Animal Rights

Kenan Malik takes on Peter Singer
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/should-apes-have-rights-peter-singer

One reason why Kenan Malik is an intellectual hero of mine is his scepticism with regard to the widespread contemporary tendency to regard animals as having rights.

I think he comes out the winner in this "David versus Goliath" debate with the unjustly idolized Peter Singer. But read it and judge for yourself.

I find Kenan Malik's case against animal rights to be very well-argued and convincing.

I am a humanist too like Kenan and I agree with everything he says here.

I say this as a Green who even has sympathies with deep ecology.

I am a humanist and I certainly do not believe that we humans are "just another species".
Nor do I believe in any kind of Gaia hypothesis that the Earth is itself a living being.

But I do believe that humanity is clearly a part of nature and that it would be very difficult for us to live outside of nature; and that generally speaking we should respect and preserve nature.

I am a human and a humanist, and consequently I make a fundamental distinction in value between the human species and all other species. I believe this distinction to be fully justified.

Combining Chomsky and Szasz - Part 2.

There is evidence that Chomsky does not (yet?) "get it" with regard to Szasz.

He is by no means the only one in this respect. Even those who profess to admire Szasz don't always  - it seems to me - fully understand him.

See the comments under the article linked below:

Chomsky on Szasz?

https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/08/lessons-ancient-philosophy/

(*See below. The renowned psychiatric survivor and campaigned Judi Chamberlin interviewed Chomsky apparently and he did not seem to agree with her about the oppression inherent in psychiatry).

Szasz himself tried to enlist Popper in his struggle against psychiatric coercion - with limited success.

Such is the power of psychiatric ideology to blinker even the most supposedly enlightened amongst us.

Szasz is not seen as a left-wing figure but his ideas seek to end the terrible and major oppression of psychiatric slavery. I think this is a liberatory and revolutionary struggle. In this sense I see Szasz as left-wing.

This struggle does not seem to yet be a mass struggle. It needs to be.

Chomsky seems to focus more on fighting the oppression of wage slavery. Also not perhaps yet a popular struggle but undoubtedly equally necessary.

Fighting wage slavery does not seem to be a priority for Szasz.

But how can we doubt that whilst Szasz seems to have believed in the economic value of work and in capitalism - he would not have believed in social justice and freedom? (He wrote that "the primary source of wealth is work" - which is simply not true in my opinion.)

Szasz was not an anti-capitalist, but he believed in individual freedom and emancipation.

Szasz didn't fully "get it" with regard to Chomsky one may even suggest - going in the other direction. Though of course there is no evidence that Szasz was an ardent supporter of U.S. foreign policy! Just as it can't be doubted that Chomsky would not be an ardent supporter of the abuses of psychiatry, assuming he were fully aware of them!

Szasz wrote that he was a believer in "the Anglo-American philosophy of freedom, with its roots in the works of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Lord Acton." 

Chomsky has in common with this at least a belief in freedom. He makes a critique of Locke's defence of the right to property. ("This country was founded on the principle that the primary role of government is to protect property from the majority. And so it remains", Chomsky said - as sampled by the Manic Street Preachers).

At a basic level, Szasz seems to identify capitalism with freedom - as so many do; whereas Chomsky - and many others of course - on the other hand identify capitalism with the denial of freedom. This is a complex question, but I personally believe that Chomsky is closer to the truth on this point.

The works of Szasz and Chomsky have their own particular concerns that perhaps leave little room for seeing other concerns. Szasz was concerned with Psychiatry, whereas Chomsky is still concerned with Linguistics and Politics.

It hardly needs saying that Chomsky is of course an intellectual superstar with a great deal of status and respect in global intellectual culture - even though not everyone agrees with his views; whereas Szasz's work is undoubtedly less well-known and less respected. I think Szasz is worthy of the same reverence as Chomsky and I hope that one day that comes to pass.

Combining the insights of the two thinkers is, I believe, vital and not something that Chomsky - the only one still living of course - has yet achieved.

============================

*Here is the relevant part of the link, which is well worth reproducing here:

Here’s what I was referring to, it’s from an interview with Judi Chamberlin, godmother of the mental patients’ liberation movement, with Darby Penney:

” DP: I think still to this day there are lots of people who are otherwise progressive, who just plain don’t get it.
JC: Oh, yeah.
DP: Why do you think that is?
JC: Some times I think it’s because they’ve had personal experiences in their family and they just think. well, this person is really nuts, crazy, whatever and they really can’t deal with them. Some times I think it’s because they’re therapized… There’s this wonderful book about the women’s movement written by two British psychologists, one of whom is an ex and an activist. It’s called Changing Our Minds. It’s about how the women’s movement kind of got highjacked by the therapy movement. About three or four years ago, this British magazine that’s published by Mind (which is kind of like the British Mental Health Association but it’s much more radical than ours, although the activists there find it pretty conservative) asked me to do an interview with Noam Chomsky. And I was so thrilled, you know, I was going to talk to Noam Chomsky about these issues. He didn’t get it at all.
DP: You’re kidding me.
JC: Didn’t get it at all. It was so disillusioning.
DP: Oh, that is disillusioning, because he’s my hero.
JC: Yeah, he didn’t get it at all.
DP: Ah, geeze.
JC: I was so disappointed I never wanted to transcribe the tape…
DP: Well, I’ll never write him in for president again.
JC: (Laughing) Yeah. I felt the same thing. I figured that someone that bright, with that good a political analysis of things, someone who really sees all kinds of oppression…It’s about medicine, he kept saying. It’s about illness and…
DP: And that’s the thing that I’ve heard from other progressives who say oh, it’s a medical thing.
JC: Ah huh. Yup.
DP: But even still. Even if you believe that it’s a medical thing, which I don’t, why does that justify the violation of human rights?
JC: Right. If you’re walking down the street and a dermatologist looks at you and says, “God, you’ve got the most terrible case of acne I’ve ever seen. Come to my office right now,” and drags you there by your hair…”

Combining Szasz and Chomsky

I would say that describing Szasz as "right-wing" is perhaps slightly misleading.
He was certainly a libertarian and defending liberty was certainly the major basis of his thinking.
In terms of his economic views he was perhaps on the right - there is evidence of this.
But the major emphasis of his thinking - as I say - was libertarian.

If believing in freedom is not regarded as left-wing then we can have little hope for the left. I personally regard myself as very much on the left. I would like to describe myself personally as something like a Green libertarian socialist. As is well-known, Noam Chomsky also describes himself as a libertarian socialist.

I very much doubt that Szasz would ever have described himself as any kind of socialist,
and he was suspicious of mass social movements and large collectivities in general.
He seems to have regarded Freud as wanting to found such a mass movement. He was sceptical of Marxism and was I think an admirer of Karl Popper. I also personally am very much a supporter of the views of Karl Popper, both in the philosophy of science and in politics. Popper is not necessarily regarded as being on the right. He could possibly be described as a reformist socialist.
[ Karl Popper  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper]

I think that Szasz was opposed to state provision of any kind of medicine - not
just state-backed and state-provided psychiatry. I personally am not opposed to the
collective provision of health care, as we have here in the U.K. Medical care is
undoubtedly a human right. But, like Szasz, I am in favour of the full separation
 of psychiatry and the state. I do not regard psychiatry as being a legitimate part
 of medicine.

Szasz was in favour of full legalization of drugs and full legalization of prostitution.
Neither position is regarded as "right-wing"!

Going in the other direction, as far as I am aware, Chomsky has so far been totally
silent about the work of Szasz.

Chomsky has of course written on psychology, and has been deeply critical of
behaviourism, in particular the thinking of Skinner. Unsurprisingly, Szasz also was against behaviourism.

It is perfectly possible to attempt some kind of "marriage" of the philosophical,

social and political views of Chomsky with those of Szasz - and it is something

that I attempt to achieve. I think they have a great deal in common.

Both thinkers share independence, controversy, thoroughness, indefatigability and courage.

Both thinkers have radically challenged the prevailing consensus views in their own particular spheres.

But what the two thinkers undoubtedly most share in common is a deep commitment to and belief in human freedom. And an unswerving opposition to oppression and all forms of slavery.

------------------------

Letter to "Philosophy Now"

Open letter to "Philosophy Now":

NO SUCH THING AS "MADNESS".

Dear Editor,

Peter Benson writes the following in the current issue of "Philosophy Now" (August/September 2017 - issue 121):

[Foucault] "... is not claiming that there is no reality to madness outside of our discourses about it. 

No-one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever seriously made such a claim."

Peter Benson therefore needs to improve his knowledge. As do many others it seems.

Many have very seriously questioned the concept of madness and asserted that it does not exist and that it is a bankrupt concept, even if the unjustly idolized Foucault is not included among them. The belief in "madness" has undoubtedly done more harm than "madness" itself, which is a concept devoid of scientific meaning anyway.

Perhaps most salient and definitely with most impact among those who have asserted the non-existence of insanity is of course Thomas Szasz (1920-2012).

In "The Myth of Mental Illness" (1961) and elsewhere he asserted that the whole concept of "mental illness" is an impossibility and effectively a "category error" to borrow a phrase from Gilbert Ryle. 

In his 1987 book "Insanity: the Idea and its Consequences" he argues with great rigour that the concept of "insanity" is "an empty vessel".

Szasz's ideas are of course relevant to wider philosophy. For example, he wrote an excellent set of essays "The Medicalisation of Everyday Life" (2007) that deal with broader issues, and not just those relevant to the important tasks of opposing coercive psychiatry and opposing what he called the Therapeutic State -  the alliance between psychiatry and the state.

Szasz should be a hero to homosexual rights proponents like Peter Benson as Szasz was one of the few to contend that homosexuality was in no way a "mental illness". But whilst  this campaign was successful, the yet more important task of convincing society that this was because nothing at all is a "mental illness" remains unfulfilled. The avoidance of a great deal of suffering is one motivation to keep trying to fulfill this task.

Yours faithfully,

"Citizen Sofa". London.

I now suppose I should have written that at least one person has seriously questioned the concept of madness. And then have included the observation of the great thinker John Stuart Mill:

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

--------------------------

Note added 8th October 2017:

The above letter was actually published to my great surprise and great delight in the OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017 Issue (No.122) of "Philosophy Now", in the Letters section under the title "No Madness in Philosophy Now".

I was impressed with their obvious commitment to freedom of speech.
I personally think it is a very important issue.
A lot of current cultural and media discourse across the entire world is related to the question of so-called "mental illness" and "mental health", and I feel it is important to present this alternative view of it.

--------------------------

"Foucault never rejected the concept of mental illness." Thomas Szasz.
"Nor did Foucault support the abolition of psychiatric slavery" Thomas Szasz.